The bold Ferrari turnaround that enabled Hamilton's Barcelona win

Since Ferrari last won a Formula 1 title - 2008's constructors' championship - the team has been dogged by inconsistent showings from one year to the next. Although the less-fortuitous seasons are often overcome, the side-effect of that inconsistency is that the stronger seasons are rarely followed up.

Take the last two seasons as an example: after taking the 2024 constructors' battle against McLaren to the Abu Dhabi finale, Ferrari hoped to go one better with Lewis Hamilton now on board; instead, the '25 car was sometimes a podium challenger, but more common in the lower reaches of the points. It was telling that Charles Leclerc couldn't explain some of his better results, as tiny set-up changes tended to put the SF-25 on the knife-edge between glory and failure. 

The full reset for 2026 allowed Ferrari to walk back on some of the decisions it had made, under the assumption of progress, with last year's car. After ending 2024 in vivacious form, Ferrari's design team felt that there wasn't much more it could achieve with a straight evolution of a race-winning car; it was hoped that a new pull-rod suspension package at the front would offer much greater interaction between the front wing and the mouth of the floor. 

But the aero package around this went underdeveloped as Ferrari pulled the plug on development in April. The likes of McLaren and Red Bull had been refining the aero around a pull-rod layout since 2022, while Ferrari picked it up at the end of the previous aero formula and hadn't made the most of it.

Ferrari reverted to a push-rod front suspension for 2026, and also implemented the same at the rear - as Pat Symonds explained in his column for Autosport in the July edition of the magazine, the shortening of the cars for 2026 has prompted teams to load the inboard suspension components above the gearbox. 

In terms of the chassis design, Ferrari has made significant strides; a hallmark of its cars over the past few years has been its compliance in dealing with kerbs and bumps, and the SF-26 held onto this characteristic as demonstrated by its performance in Monaco. The aerodynamic package also seems to be well-conceived and open to development, again demonstrated by its steady improvement through the season so far. Its early season performances had given the team licence to battle with Mercedes, particularly during the start of races, but the Silver Arrows' distinct power advantage had put it beyond Ferrari's reach.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

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Ferrari's power unit, while solid enough, has been something of a restriction. McLaren team boss Andrea Stella stated that the Italian squad has produced the best chassis, while Lando Norris was a bit more forthright on the subject: "They're the class of the field in terms of cornering performance at the minute and we're not even close to them. It's the realistic point of it, we're a long, long way from where we need to be. If they make improvements on the engine side, then they'll embarrass everyone..."

When one compares George Russell's Barcelona pole lap to Hamilton's run from that session, this is evident; the 'circuit domination' overlay shows Mercedes is stronger on the straights, but Ferrari has the run of the corners. Hamilton could brake later, carry throttle into the corner, and get on the power sooner. As the straights get longer, however, the Mercedes' advantage only grows. 

So, Ferrari needs a little bit of help from ADUO to get on level terms, although it doesn't help that Mercedes has somehow managed to wangle itself an upgrade from being 2% down on the Red Bull Ford power unit.

But there's no shortage of desire, particularly with Hamilton chomping at the bit to encourage Ferrari's engineers to push itself. His frustrations last year were borne of the lack of development, and his request for changes within the team not being acted on in a matter he deemed swift enough. Perhaps Hamilton didn't appreciate the turnaround time needed for more wholesale shuffles, but having team boss Fred Vasseur in his corner reassured him to some extent. 

Hamilton has been pleased by the innovation shown at Ferrari, particularly with the aero tools that other teams have begun to explore: the rotating rear wing has been the centrepiece, sure, but the field was quick to copy the SF-26's exhaust winglet that makes use of the exhaust gases to not only generate downforce, but to enlarge the low-pressure zone at the rear of the car to extract more diffuser and rear wing performance.

And, while the other teams took the straight-mode actuator winglets to an impressive level in Monaco, Ferrari had been the first team to use this bounding box to fit a tab at the trailing edge of the rear wing to increase its output. 

"These guys have really listened and really worked hard to add performance and be innovative," Hamilton enthused post-victory at Barcelona. "This year is all about innovation. We came out with the bit on the rear exhaust. We came out with the rear wing, the Macarena. This is what I was asking for last year. 

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

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"It was like this team has to be the leaders in that, and they’ve shown that they can and they will. And we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. By no means is this something that’s just going to happen all the time. We’ve got a heavy, heavy, steep mountain to climb up ahead of us to try to do this as Mercedes has all year so far."

The Barcelona updates, addressing the floor and the front wing, helped to inject a bit more performance and counter some of the gains that Mercedes made in Montreal. The car still needs a smidgen of downforce but, as addressed above, the car is looking good in the low-to-medium speed cornering range and can also hold its own in the higher-speed sections of the calendar. It's very driveable, and Leclerc must harbour hopes of matching Hamilton once he's up to speed with his team-mate's braking layout.

If Ferrari is overcoming its usual design conservatism, perhaps a by-product of previous ages where engineers felt less empowered to flex their creative instincts, the team also put on a show in Barcelona with a well-executed strategy. 

Hamilton made the three-stop work with his relentless pace on the medium tyre in his third stint, followed up by a brilliant final stint on the hard tyre. The team had some help when Mercedes decided to respond to Hamilton, even though his soft-tyre start should have been an indication that he was three-stopping regardless. Perhaps Mercedes feared that it might lose track position by not calling Russell in on lap 12, one lap later than Hamilton, but it ultimately gave Russell much more to do with his hard-tyre stints later in the race in a high-degradation affair. Ferrari had Mercedes right where it wanted. 

There is still a lot to do: Ferrari must keep the good time rolling with its approach to aero developments, and pick the lowest-hanging fruit with regards to the ADUO-permitted updates that should close the gap to Mercedes. It's far too early to be talking about Ferrari as a title contender, even if recent form suggests that this is no mere flash in the pan, but it has momentum on its side. Above all, this momentum cannot be wasted.